Welcome Home
by Julia451
Summary: One-shot. The story behind Mai's house near the palace and what it means to her, especially after Zuko's banishment and his return. Maiko Mai/Zuko


"It'll do," her mother conceded with undisguised disappointment.

Mai thought her mother deserved a medal for her performance today – she had managed to fill this one morning up with more criticisms than Mai usually heard from her in a month, on something that could hardly be any less her business, at that!

Mai heard her father trying to reassure his wife: "Mai can better oversee construction while she's here of a larger and more luxurious home appropriate for her status..." Mai said nothing; she had learned hours ago how futile it was to argue or defend anything.

It was the most infuriating thing her parents had ever put her through, and even though she felt that about once a week, it was completely, unequivocally true this time. They seemed to be trying their best to ruin the day she had been looking forward to for months.

Never had any of the Fire Nation's rules pleased her as much as the one that called for preparing a house on the palace grounds for her where she would live for the duration of her engagement to the prince. The building had been nothing but drawings and diagrams on paper when it began to feel more like home than her parents' house ever had. A place of her own, where she would be free to do as she pleased and run things her way, to see Zuko whenever they both wanted in complete privacy... The plans had looked beautiful enough, but the greatest charm of the prospective house had been that it would simply be _hers_. The wonderful feeling had disappeared as soon as she and her parents had stepped over the threshold of the newly-finished building. She hadn't wanted them to come at all; she had counted all along on seeing it for the first time alone with Zuko. They had no business being here! Mai knew it was irrational of her, but she felt like they were determined to withhold her freedom from their control as long as possible. The house wasn't hers. It had never been hers. From her first step inside, her parents had taken it from her.

Her father saw Prince Zuko come around the corner of the building and quickly hugged his wife and daughter, declaring at the top of his lungs, "What a perfectly lovely home, dear! The Prince has the most excellent taste! I know you'll be so happy here, Mai!"

Mai quickly disengaged herself from her parents – together, maybe she and her ally could achieve some revenge. She bowed to her fiancé and said solemnly, "I'm so sorry I won't be able to live in the lovely home you've prepared exactly as I asked, Prince Zuko."

Zuko swallowed his laughter and asked in the same formal tone, "I'm so sorry to hear that, Mai – is the house not to your liking?"

"I must apologize for my foolishness," Mai confessed. "I see now our plans for my temporary home were all wrong. Fortunately, my wise mother has been kind enough to show me the error of our ways and explain all the points in which your work has failed, and, as a dutiful daughter, I am always ruled by my mother's superior judgement. Before I can join you here, I must insist for my mother's sake that you build a house exactly suited to her tastes in every way – she can instruct you on everything your own taste is obviously lacking. Please tell the prince exactly what you've been telling me all afternoon, Mother."

Her parents both began frantically rambling something about her mother not feeling well, which was evidently very true right now, and ran as if for their lives towards their bewildered servants and bearers. Once the retinue was out of sight, Zuko grabbed Mai around the waist and twirled her around.

The place was starting to feel like home...

* * *

Mai didn't hear what her parents said to her after dismissing the emissary who had brought the news of the prince's disgrace and banishment and the scroll officially informing them of the dissolution of his marriage contract. She simply waited until they were finished and walked up to her room without replying. She slammed her door shut and silently raged against Zuko for being stupid enough to speak out against a General in the Fire Lord's war chamber and against herself for being stupid enough to admire him for it.

Mai walked to her window and stood drinking in the cool breeze through her hot skin. She looked out to the sea and thought of how tomorrow, Zuko would be boarding a ship never to return, and she would be forbidden to say good-bye or offer comfort or reassurance in any way, to do anything but watch silently and helplessly. She wouldn't go – it sickened her to think how happy her parents would be by her decision and how horribly they would misinterpret her motives, but she couldn't deceive herself into thinking she could bear it.

Her gaze wandered to the left and fell on the spires and lit windows of the palace. She thought of the house she would never live in now. She saw a tear fall on the windowsill.

She cursed the house responsible for that moment of weakness.

* * *

She went. She stood serenely on the wall overlooking the courtyard and watched Zuko walk away without letting a single muscle of her face reveal any reaction whatsoever. She might have been watching a scene in a play she didn't like happening to a character she couldn't care less about. She accomplished the goal that had brought her here – to conquer the weakness that had overwhelmed her last night. If she could take this, she could take anything.

But, no, she hadn't been tested enough yet to be sure – she wouldn't be until Zuko turned around and looked up at her. Only if she had the chance to face him without breaking would she know she was strong enough to face anything now. _Look at me_, she silently ordered him. She didn't know that with every step Zuko took, he resisted the urge to raise his head and look for her, that he wanted to think she wasn't here to see him like this. When he reached the gangplank, she realized she'd have to give herself a different test.

Mai found herself facing the front door of the house without remembering how she'd gotten there. Reaching out a steady arm, she pushed the door open and went inside. She walked through every room, lingering a long time in each one, memorizing the view outside each window, carefully planning what she would have liked to add here or move there, what she would have used this or that room for, what she would have done each morning when she woke up and before bed, what food she would have had the servants prepare, picturing eating dinner with Zuko…

Her last act was to throw one knife at a target in the training area set up in the backyard. Her aim and vision were perfect. She left fully satisfied with her success and her knowledge of what the next few years would feel like.

She didn't retrieve the knife but left it where it had landed, wishing she could have cut and sliced the entire house until it was nothing but sawdust.

* * *

Her victory was so successful that not a single thought of her old enemy occurred to her until she and Zuko had left the celebration of their conquest of Ba Sing Se. Everyone was too busy getting more details from Ty Lee or praising Azula to bother them. They walked around the palace courtyard, hand in hand but silent at first, until Zuko starting pointing out things that had changed. He asked Mai about them until he realized some of them were new to her as well. She told him about her own move to New Ozai, lately Omashu, three months before Azula came for her. He asked her a few questions about her life in the Earth Kingdom; she asked him none about his, for which he was grateful.

They left the main grounds and began walking amongst the buildings that made up what was known as "the palace city." They stopped, leaned against the wall next to a closed gate, and looked across the way at a dark house that, although it was neither boarded up nor evidently damaged, bore all the signs of not being lived in for a long time.

"Are you going back to New Ozai soon?" Zuko finally asked.

Mai stared at the lonely building for what seemed a long time before answering. "Azula wants Ty Lee and me to stay around for awhile; she thinks she might need us again," was all she said, knowing it was too dangerous to disobey Azula's order to tell no one (including her brother) about the invasion coming on the Day of Black Sun.

"Where are you staying?" he asked next.

"For tonight, in one of the guest wings, probably the same one I used when Azula invited me over when we were kids." She wouldn't let her thoughts stray anywhere else – not yet…

"And after that?"

"Probably still there, unless you have another suggestion..." Mai answered deliberately vaguely, wanting Zuko to say what he was evading as much as she was.

Zuko looked over at the house again. "You could stay there... I mean, you always planned to, and it... it would be a shame to let it go to waste... I mean, if..." He looked from the house to her. "...if you still want to."

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked, taking his shoulder and neck in her hands.

He put his arms tremulously around her waist as he said, "Because... things are different now. You don't have to..."

She leaned forward and kissed him. "Don't think you'll get out of it that easily. I've waited too long to give it up now."

He kissed her again and held her tight, as if afraid she would disappear if he let her go, all the disbelief and uncertainty that had held him back on the ship gone.

"I'll speak to the servants first thing in the morning," he said as they walked away.

"Thank you," she whispered, unsure if she was speaking to Zuko or to the home that had waited for her.

* * *

To Mai's surprise, the house was ready only a few days later. "How do you like it?" Zuko asked as they sat down on her new couch.

"It's no Earth King's palace, but it'll do," Mai said in her mother's tone. "It better not be too boring here."

"I'll make sure of that," Zuko assured her, leaning over and kissing her. Without warning, it suddenly occurred to Mai that they were a young man and woman now and what that meant, that they were in a place no one could disturb them, with the freedom to do as the desired. She fell onto her back and pulled Zuko along with her, letting him continue. It got more and more heated until their mutually overly-heightened instincts of self-preservation stopped them before they went very far.

_Neither the time nor the place_, Mai repeated silently to herself as she held him close and tried to breathe. What had come over them?

She blamed the house.

* * *

"When you said it needed a few adjustments, I didn't think this was what you had in mind," said Zuko as he watched her hang the picture on the wall.

"My parents' house is full of portraits," Mai said for explanation. "Not to mention the palace. Why shouldn't I have at least one?"

"Not portraits like _this_," Zuko pointed out.

Mai thought of the bright, colorful, stunning, gawdy, larger-than-life paintings and tapestries of the past Fire Lords and their families that Azula had shown her so many times when they were children as she looked at the simple, black-and-white painting of her and Zuko. The only thing stunning about it was the scar that no member of Fire Nation royalty would ever have tolerated being included in their portrait.

"That's why it's better than all of them," Mai said, putting her arm around her fiancé's shoulders as they continued to observe her latest decoration. If Zuko was shocked by the orders she had given the artist, she was more shocked by the effect the portrait had on the room. It had made her feel something she hadn't felt since she and Zuko had chased her parents away after their tour; having such a thing made and placing it here made the house feel like it truly belonged to her.

At last, after years of waiting, she was home.


End file.
